Komparatistische Bibliothek / Comparative Studies Series / Bibliothèque d'Études Comparatives – serie

Der Band versammelt Beiträge zu vielfältigen Erscheinungsformen von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs. Die Tragfähigkeit eines flexiblen Öffentlichkeitsbegriffs wird anhand von Einzelstudien zur Sowjetunion, zu den ostmitteleuropäischen Staaten und zu China erprobt. Es ergibt sich ein heterogenes und vielschichtiges Bild der Ausprägungen und Entwicklungen verschiedener Sphären von Öffentlichkeit. Deutlich wird, daß eine lediglich Defizite aufzeigende Kontrastierung zum bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeitsmodell zur Analyse staatssozialistischer Herrschaft nicht geeignet ist. Die Beiträge des Bandes erschließen zunächst die gesellschaftliche Relevanz von Öffentlichkeiten in Sowjetstaaten aus der Binnenperspektive der vorgestellten Einzelfälle. In einem zweiten Schritt werden in der komparativen Zusammenschau allgemeinere Strukturen von Öffentlichkeit in sowjetischen Systemen in den Blick genommen.The volume tests a flexible terminology that may serve to describe and analyze the notion of public sphere in state socialist dictatorships. A heterogeneous picture emerges from case studies on Soviet, East European and Chinese issues. A closer look makes clear that the public sphere in Soviet-type regimes cannot be understood as merely lacking most of the features associated with the Habermasian model. It is necessary to explore the meaning of public space in different social, political and national contexts to work out a comparative perspective. This perspective may constitute a framework for general conclusions about spheres of public action in Soviet-type societies.

By analysing the proposals for teacher education drawn up by UNESCO, the World Bank and OECD, this book shows that even though each of these organizations has different views about education, their proposals are based on a similar set of assumptions about the future, and about how educational systems should be reformed to adapt to this future. In order to explore the effects of these proposals in different contexts, the book examines the educational reforms implemented in Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s, revealing how the discourse of international agencies was transformed as it met with local assumptions about what constitutes good education for teachers. The findings of this research are discussed within a broader theoretical model which makes it possible, thus, to map the circulation of discourse in the global educational field.

This book examines the policy outcomes of purportedly unavoidable tendencies towards educational isomorphism and harmonization by analyzing, at a regional level, the educational policies devised and carried out by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) over the past two decades. It chronicles the policy process (functional cooperation) and policy tools (lessons-drawing, externalization and policy transfer) of regionalization and highlights, from a cooperation and collaboration perspective, the importance of time, space, and geographic proximity and their roles in furthering convergence. The book’s analyses conclude by showing that, based on the semantics of harmonization, educational isomorphism occurs in cyclical waves and that the fifteen member states of CARICOM only cooperate when it is in their best interest, irrespective of the policy outcome. Therefore, the isomorphic tendencies that exist at the regional level are not – or not primarily – the result of a world polity as hypothesized by neo-institutionalist theory, but rather that of collective choices to confront both challenges and opportunities of globalization and global competition.

The volume is concerned with educational developments in small and microstates, a topic that has only relatively recently started to attract the attention it deserves. It is guided by the questions (i) if and how small and microstates deal with policy challenges to their education systems that are particularly important for their future development and (ii) whether there is something like typical «small / microstate behavior.» The volume seeks to contribute to a genuinely comparative approach to education in small and microstates. Moreover, widening conventional definitions of smallness, it aims to advance research in the field not only in a thematic but also in a theoretical perspective. Overall, the volume seeks to expand our understanding of small and microstates – and by implication of big states as well –, especially regarding what is general and what is particular about their behavior.

Jason Nicholls’ Constellation Analysis is an important contribution to studies in Comparative Education. From a deeply philosophical perspective (drawing in particular on the work of Hegel, Gadamer and Foucault), the author explores the ways in which topics in history education may be analysed and compared across international contexts. Utilising the Second World War as an «exemplar topic», the depiction of this crucial historical event in three countries, Japan, Sweden and England, is subjected to a highly novel form of interrogation. The book provides the reader not only with important insights into the nature of the books in use in classrooms across these contexts, but also into the educational – and indeed broad socio-political – environments beyond the classrooms.

This book looks at the backstage of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD) educational agendas. By explaining the rise and fall of its first educational agenda – Recurrent Education – it explores the organisation’s institutional structures and functioning, as well as its decision-making processes. The volume brings together theoretical approaches and empirical findings to expound on the organisation’s three overlapping constitutive dimensions of actor, arena, and instrument. The study shows the significance of intertwined institutional and conceptual changes for educational agenda-setting and knowledge production within the organization. The author turns the focus from the diffusion/reception of international policies to their production, and analyses a large volume of internal documents across time (1960s–1980s).

Stefan Thomas Hopmann's scholarship offers one of the most thorough and insightful examinations of curricular making processes across historical and cultural contexts. His research spans a wide range of research areas and perspectives, including cross-disciplinary reasoning and topical analysis, integrating insights from classical theories to late-modern approaches. This book of Hopmann's collected works offers both broad perspectives, theoretical explorations, and concrete knowledge, making it useful to researchers, students, and practitioners working with curriculum and didactics.The book presents 19 Essays of Hopmann’s scholarly production and an extended introduction to his work and its academic contribution. The volume is structured into three sections: State-regulated curriculum work: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Curriculum Coordination Across Social and Cultural Contexts, and Curriculum Constitutive Mindsets. You can access the individual chapters via the following link: Chapters

National school systems have been significantly conditioned by two global trends since the end of the 20th century. On the one hand, there is a shift towards inclusive education that aims at accommodating schooling to all pupils’ learning conditions. On the other hand, there is a rapidly growing focus on standards, emphasising goal achievement for all pupils as well. In this field of tension, the profession of special educators has been central, as it has traditionally focused on students for whom instruction in regular classrooms lacks appropriate educational solutions yet still expects regular goal achievement. While much is known about how global trends have changed national school systems and teaching professions, we know little about how these trends have affected special education professions internationally. Against this background, this volume presents studies on the formation of Special education professions since the 2000s in Germany and Sweden.

The debate concerning the role of knowledge in the economic growth process has gained considerable attention, both because of the importance of its implications in terms of economic policy and due to the number of theoretical and empirical analyses it has engendered. Thus, the argument according to which endogenous growth models explain long-term economic growth is often put forward. It is held that the production of knowledge induces self-maintained economic growth. However, in spite of numerous theoretical developments, attempts at empirical verification have run up against serious methodological difficulties. The first and most serious stumbling block is the way in which an intangible good of incommensurable size such as knowledge is evaluated. Moreover, most of the empirical studies carried out in recent years have taken the form of cross-national comparisons designed to analyse the role of different socio-economic factors in growth. So far, however, they have not succeeded in making conclusive statements of whether or not knowledge can induce long-term economic growth. Taking this state of research into consideration, the main objective of the present volume is to re-examine, by way of new techniques of quantitative analysis, theoretical models developed with a view to ascertaining the endogenous nature of economic growth induced by the production of knowledge.

The present volume analyses the actual processes by which liberal ideas and modern educational and cultural projects traveled to, and were institutionalized in, the Latin American context during the post-independence period. It comprises a number of essays that pay attention to the process of importing specific ideas to particular contexts, and to the peculiar dynamics of that communication. Although diverse in theme and methodological approach, all of the studies that make up this volume focus on the typical features characterizing the selection, appropriation and utilization of imported political discourses and institutions, models of schooling and cultural practices. Each of the contributors follows the circulation and appropriation of specific European «ideas» and «models», and discusses the social and cultural characteristics of the process of communication that shaped that circulation.

Identity, Education and Citizenship – Multiple Interrelations presents the outcomes of the 21st Conference of the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE), held in Copenhagen, in summer 2004. Bringing together studies related to educational policies, the volume deals with the fact that the stream of ideas, information, culture, and money across the national borders continues to increase and to influence all sectors of modern society. Among the sectors most powerfully affected are educational practices and educational institutions of all kinds. Consequently, national educational policies must be examined and reviewed. The book tries to broaden the scope of existing Comparative Education literature and demonstrates the advantages of employing a comparative approach to current trends in society and education.

In the face of accelerated economic globalisation, many of the industries in economically less developed countries have become more technology-intensive. Skill formation processes, both inside and outside firms, are therefore changing. This study scrutinises such transformations by comparing – from the perspective of historical institutionalism – the skill formation regimes of the garment industries in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It sheds light on the differences between the trajectories of the in-firm skill formation regimes of the two countries, and reveals the important part that varying paths of educational development in both countries have played in shaping these trajectories. At the same time, the study shows how, in both countries, state-led skill formation regimes have been transformed not only by market forces and the growing importance of corporate business interests, but also by the social demand for educational credentials.